Palantir’s Freaky ELITE App: ‘Kind of Like Google Maps,’ but for Finding Deportation Targets

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

ICE's Palantir-Developed App ELITE Offers a Nightmarish Vision of Our Technocratic, Mass Surveillance Future

Add this to the Nightmarish Phrases From Our Ongoing Occupation Hall of Fame: "Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a 'confidence score' on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned."

The app is called ELITE, according to 404's Joseph Cox, and ICE is already using it to locate large groups of people it might detain. The app "pulls from all kinds of sources,” according to December testimony from a deportation officer with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Unit, and is "kind of like Google Maps.”

"You’re going to go to a more dense population rather than […] like, if there’s one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10 percent […] you’re not going to go there," the officer, identified only as JB, continued.

To put a finer point on the horrors: ICE agents select a person on the app's map interface, then ELITE brings up a dossier on that person, including their name, photo, Alien Number (the unique code the U.S. government assigns to immigrants), date of birth, and full address. ELITE can also do this in reverse, looking up people by name, Alien Number, etc.

"These records give us behind-the-scenes insight into the kind of mass surveillance machine ICE is building with help from powerful tech companies like Palantir,” Laura Rivera, senior staff attorney at Just Futures Law, tells 404 Media.

Just What We Need: Right-Wing Influencer Plans Cedar-Riverside March

You know what they say: If it's not one thing (armed, masked federal officers kidnapping people off of the streets) it's another (right-wing influencers organizing a march to “take back” Minnesota).

For the Star Tribune, Louis Krauss reports that slimy conservative poster Jake Lang, one of these weird little freaks we have to pay attention to now, is planning a “March Against Minnesota Fraud." The march, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, January 17, at Minneapolis City Hall, has community members in Cedar-Riverside justifiably concerned about the possible harassment of the area's Somali residents.

Local leaders are urging those in the neighborhood to go about their day as usual and asking those from outside the neighborhood not to protest. You can read their full statement below:

Ellison Launches Digital Form for Reporting Federal Incidents

Have you "personally experienced or directly witnessed" harm while observing or protesting ICE? Bet you have!

On Thursday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison introduced a Federal Action Reporting Form where folks can report the actions of invading agents to his office—and those effects are not just limited to physical violence. From the form, which you can access here:

This form is for reporting incidents or effects related to or caused by recent federal actions in Minnesota, including but not limited to: violations of constitutional rights (racial profiling, excessive force, retaliation against protestors, observers, and media), business closures, reduced healthcare access, reduced education access, other issues impacting public safety and civil liberties, federal funding cuts, federal grant terminations, terms and conditions tied to federal program participation, other administrative actions by Federal agencies.

Ellison is encouraging submissions that are "specific and as detailed and direct as possible," and notes that eyewitness accounts and reports from those directly involved are preferred to stories you've heard.

A Great Resource for Supporting MN

If you're anything like me, you've had lots of out-of-town friends and family members asking a version of "How can I help Minnesota right now?" over the last few weeks. And maybe you too have felt a little overwhelmed by the question—like, I don't know, here's 20 GoFundMe links, have at it!

On Wednesday, Ashley Fairbanks launched a seriously kickass website, Stand With Minnesota, that solves that problem. It's divided into sections—Mutual Aid & Materials Purchasing, GoFundMe Campaigns, and Organizations Doing Work On The Ground—so folks can donate with specificity. And there are subdivisions within each main category; the GoFundMe section, for example is further broken up into campaigns for individuals, schools/students, and communities. It's seriously impressive stuff.

"I built this directory because I was sitting in Texas and feeling useless as friends across social media shared random needs and links across platforms as they were in the streets," Fairbanks tells Racket. "I wanted there to be one hub to send to people that had a variety of causes, and more than just organizations, mutual aid groups and individuals, too. People need resources now, we need ways to quickly tell our story and leverage whatever help is available, around the country and the world."

Fairbanks says the site has had more than 25,000 unique visitors in 24 hours. Hell yeah—keep 'em coming.